What should missions be?

[Guest]

For many years I've enjoyed playing various missions from various games, Rogue Spear, GR, OFP. These games in particular offered excellent opportunities to be able to play in some very realistic and immersive atmospheres, with OFP reallly topping the bunch with its almost seemingly limitless possibilities.

Ive imagined for a very long time missions that incorporated everything I really think a mission should, but have yet to see it released from a gaming company. The closest Ive seen has come in the form of a few particular OFP missions created by users, which are truly magnificent in their design, especially considering these folks dedicated their personal time (off work time) to making missions that break the grounds of what standard missions offer, and obviously spent huge amounts of their own time on these, where to get the proper results in such large scale immersive 'dynamic' type missions there is seemingly more 'work' than fun when it comes to the scripting as the 'if this occurrs then what?' is a question attacked in the scripts constantly, causing complex scripting to fix the many issues that may arise.

Really, what I would like to point out here, is that if people can find it in themselves to attempt such missions on their own precious time off, why cant these same type missions be produced by the gaming companies themselves?

I have always believed that in the end, the mission is what the player ends up with, all the fancy addons and nice scenery amounts to nothing without the mission, the mission utilizes these, not the other way around.

Now there's plenty of good quality missions out there produced by gaming companies, and the missions that come with OFP are good too, but honestly when one really delves into what can be done to make truly alive and free missions, they just arent there, nor from really any gaming company, the missions that seem to try to attempt this normally lack severely in certain aspects, removing the desirable overall effect.

I guess what Im getting at is how long will these gaming companies wait before putting the innovative work into their missions to make adventures out some of their missions, rather than the user community trying to do it. I mean no offense, I just would like to bring this up. I enjoyed playing certain very unique missions by users for OFP, that are unparalelled by OFP's original missions, like Abandoned Armies, Capture The Island, these two being at the top of my list.

And to think these missions where made by folks on their time off of work, they made em, tested em, released them basically alone. All the while with all these large gaming companies that have people that are actually being paid to make missions, and these missions qualities do not compare to these missions made by user, I think personally that the value of the mission itself should maybe be realized more by gaming companies, because it really is the mission that its all about in the end, and missions that turn an experience on ones computer into an adventure with all sorts of freedom and realness is something I have yet to see produced by a gaming company for a high quality diverse 3d tactical shooter.

[crashdome 1]

You make a point that should've been made upfront a long time ago.

I too, have been championing the cause for more dynamic Ai, missions, etc... I draw most of my ideas from games of past times (before FPS craze) and from some truly ground-breaking sim and isometric titles that were too unfinished to be publicly realized.

The ideas are simple and the effort is minimal when you have the access to the source. For us scriptors, it's been a nightmare trying to fight the very nature of games and provide the community with something more replayable and challenging. Not just some missions I can play over and over and over until I get it right.

Even if, the game/engine creators cannot produce such material in an appropriate time-frame, then so be it... but please... PLEASE provide us the MEANS in which to carry out the battle without having to drag the engine kicking and screaming.

[The-Architect 0]

It's all about the money mate. Companies have to bang out new releases to keep up with the market. If they spent as much time on each mission as some of us serious mission makers did, they would have a game that was out of date before it was released.

It's an unfortunate reality that most, (not all) game companies don't reallycare that much about the people who play, just that their game is bought. As long as they keep to an acceptable standard they couldn't care less. A fine example of this is EA.

[bonko the sane 2]

you mentioned user made missions, given the limited time i've had to play OFP in multiplayer this year, i have been (re)playing quite a few usermade SP missions...and all i can say is a BIG THANK YOU to all the Mission Makers who devote themselves to this fine art.

[Guest]

Wow. Cant believe this didnt get locked , Havent been on my puter in a while, and honestly I did have a bit to drink that particular night when I felt the need to open my big mouth

Quote[/b] ]It's all about the money mate. Companies have to bang out new releases to keep up with the market. If they spent as much time on each mission as some of us serious mission makers did, they would have a game that was out of date before it was released.

It's an unfortunate reality that most, (not all) game companies don't reallycare that much about the people who play, just that their game is bought. As long as they keep to an acceptable standard they couldn't care less. A fine example of this is EA.

I also have figured this to be a main reason, buuut, I also think if large scale type missions were created, and then perfected by a gaming company they would really become a game within the game, and if the re-play value was really that good and the length of one mission play - thru was a good amount of time, I would think it would do a number of positive things:

Increase sales (obviously)

Increase longevity of game staying on ones computer

The big one - increase potential for realeasing purchaseable mission addons

I like to envision as an example some variant of Twilight 2000, imagine a mission that is so in depth that after making the first one you could make expansion packs for the mission itself lol, new scenarios, options. That was a really neat (although board game) rpg game, where you found yourself and a small group seperated from the main detachment after a huge battle, the contryside a mess, enemies hiding out, civies around, towns to visit, etc etc, try to survive and decide what to do...

As just an example, but I think theres tons of settings that could be used that would make for quite an experience, and with the tools at hand from the gaming company itself the mission(s) could be really top notch.

Quote[/b] ]I too, have been championing the cause for more dynamic Ai, missions, etc... I draw most of my ideas from games of past times (before FPS craze) and from some truly ground-breaking sim and isometric titles that were too unfinished to be publicly realized.

The ideas are simple and the effort is minimal when you have the access to the source. For us scriptors, it's been a nightmare trying to fight the very nature of games and provide the community with something more replayable and challenging. Not just some missions I can play over and over and over until I get it right.

Even if, the game/engine creators cannot produce such material in an appropriate time-frame, then so be it... but please... PLEASE provide us the MEANS in which to carry out the battle without having to drag the engine kicking and screaming.

Nice post, and I agree.

Id much rather play a mission that is challenging yet maybe still somewhat easy but is just plain and simply immersive to be an adventure for a while rather than bust by butt having to play the thing 5 x or more till I figure out how to beat it thru understanding the layout, after the 3rd time it gets to where its just a push to move on to the next mission, although this wouldnt apply so much if the mission had enough freedom where I could give up on the current scenario and just try something else, which of course most official missions do not afford this when the entire mission is focused around one (or maybe two max) scenario. Even maybe return to the particular scenario once Ive gotten some new assett to make it a little easier, etc etc. The worst scenarios for me in the past have been constantly getting stuck in fairly wide open terrain fighting hordes of long distance enemies where there's too much chance involved for what is just a game, oops, darn, got hit by a bullet from Ak burst from 200 m away, restart again, and when I finally do make it, it doesent feel like such a great success as me and my medic are the only ones left alive - that is even after going thru using every little peice of tiny hills in the area to try to win with some sort of strategy. In this particular scenario of course I often see possibilities in flanking manuevers, but yer kinda 'stuck' a mile away from these attack points, where it would take an hour just to run your group away from the danger area, swing around and come back in. Just a small example of some of the negative effects of having very little options in a mission, aside from what great potential there is in 'dynamic' type missions.

[Chris Death 0]

Off course you are right, but honestly you shouldn't forget a

few things:

user made missions were built upon long time experience in

ofp battlefield up to what would one like to challenge/see/fight for/etc.

OFP players are not just poor sheeps - there are really genious brains out there in the comunity who had enough

time left to collect their experience in ofp to build missions

of that quality.

When it comes to produce your own product it's like being

already mentioned before a question of time and money.

No company can spend that amount of time into exploring

the user wishes like the comunity itself. Usually your sponsor

wants to get something back inright time and don't want to

hear: 'it's quite ok, but our users deserve something more'.

It's a very close calculation, companies often have to deal with.

Also don't forget - there's the official campaigns, which

are simply of quality and you can see them as the missions

you are looking for when speaking about quality missions.

Most user made missions cannot challenge with them.

Then there were also missions like Ambush - this one was

long time top of the notch even if it was very simple made

but there was that kind of atmosphere to make my heart beat

faster when playing it.

Not only once i've been reading about how BIS members were

stunning about what ppl have made out of the engine they

delivered them and how they enjoyed themselves playing

some of those user made missions (or addons).

~S~ CD

[Guest]

I totally understand what you are saying Chris, but if one takes a look at examples in other entertainment industries there are examples of how pushing the limits can yeild grandly.

An example, I just rented Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back (for the fiftyith time lol), and watched the special features last night. Lucas went 10 Million dollars over budget to finish it lol, his time to make the film was taking too long also, and the main sponser was ready to cut out, lol, after getting so close to having it done. He in the end of course got it done, the movie made huuge money, and obviously is still enjoyed even today - if he hadnt pushed the limits in the many area's of that film (at the time special effects were almost non existant) it would have just been another film about space stuff, instead the movie was so well done that even with todays special effects and all you can still enjoy the original Star Wars movies.

I know that the movie industry is a lot more used overall by people than video games, but nonetheless, there are examples out there of what can happen when limits are pushed, but there are risks also.

Im a little skeptical as to how long it really would take to make high quality 'dynamic' type missions thru a gaming company tho, my current project ive spent about 80 (solid) hours on, and its slowly nearing completion, 25 or so scripts, prolly about 100 pages worth of scripting, I try to imagine how close Id be to completion if I were able to focus on this alone without my 'real' job, I think she might be in testing phases right now...

I know you guys are just being realistic, but, I guess I'm just still wishing and hoping a company like BIS would dare to create some of these massively free 'dynamic' type missions, and I cant help but see examples of how others in the past have pulled off going past the 'norm' to get great quality product..

[mp_phonix 0]

I'm little off-topicing here, nut the best user-made campaign I ever play is the "Retaliation" one ! amazing !

It was also a lot a lot of fun for me because I am russian so I was able to understand what they were saying, and osmetimes they were saying jokes and stuff that a player that dosen't understand russian wont understand it even in the english translation, kind of like "Lost in translation" stuff . . .. also when they were cursing/swearing in the radio chatter, Men I was ROFL ! a missions with that kind of thing is the "RED DOT" & "SLEEPING BUETIS" missions ! excellent ones ! excellent !!!!!!!!

I also liked it because it feets perefctly into the CWC campaign

another campaign that I enojyed is the "Operation Mercury" by king-nothing. Also good one

for example the missions thay I like to see when you have an 'realistic invaorment', like you go inside a base and you see soldiers talking near a truck or something, soldiers patrolling and stuff. It give a very good and nice atmosphere

[Friedchiken 0]

I also agree that the mission design in the Retaliation campaign is excellent. And I don't even understand Russian despite becoming very attached to all of the main characters.

The quality you get from users is definitely correlated to the mass amounts of user mission the campaign authors played through before sitting down to make their own.

I'm also playing through Abandoned Armies 1.4 and I love it. That mission must be a pain to beta test. The problem is that it could never be released as a commercial product, because THobson scripted some understandable "show-stoppers" to prevent strange actions. Commercail companies do not have the luxury of the player's understanding of scripting/scenario limitations.

That said, I would say that Abandoned Armies is even better than Jagged Alliance 2 in terms of immersion. I can count on BIS to make the engine that will run my dream mission.

For Armed Assault, I wonder if someone could make a spin-off of Abandoned Armies, centering the story around a group of mercenaries sent to liberate a South American country (or Sarahni).

The type of mission I like is the super authentic ones that are challenging but possible to play through without restarting once. It's a real immersion killer when you are forced to memorize the upcoming battle in order to continue through the game. And while "After Montigniac" was a very good mission, I'd rather mission makers to avoid that suicidal mission design. 8/10 times poor Armstrong could not have survived that terrible situation in real life.

I appreciate the mission where you must pay attention or die, but that you have the odds generally in your favor (like an overwhelming Coalition assault on a small resistance stronghold).

[Guest]

I agree that many missions of grand scale that are made by users are to a degree not able to be made to perfection, at least not reasonably considering the amount of time one spends of their own personal time attacking issues, and primarily as you stated FriedChicken, its because as a mission's dynamic qualities increase (massive freedom that is) there becomes more and more potential issues that can arise, from player actions or others, and so putting up with either bugs or limiting 'in mission' qualities become constant descisions in certain scenarios, but really there are a good number of games out there that are kinda bugged to heck, and still get alot of people playing them just because the mission(s) is/are massively free, dynamic.

For instance SWG (Star Wars Galaxies), allllot of people play it, there's friggin bugs alover the game, but the freedom is unparalelled - although I did quit it because I totally feel that the developers dont have enough going on and it can get boring, nonetheless the structure of the overall layout is impressive with huge freedom, but alot of issues that arise. I think at least at this stage in time of massive dynamic missions being designed these types of missions/games are kinda new, and very buggy to a degree, I dont mind that, its a great advance in turning games into massive immersive adventures, I would think that if gaming companies continue to pursue such missions that they will shape over time into less buggy and more immersive missions.

I myself like also qualities in missions that make it seem like the atmosphere is alive, the less it feels like just a video game and the more it seems to capture me, the more worth it - it is for me to spend my time on it, I personally think that the immersive factor should almost always override the difficulty factor, I dont play missions to get paid for playing them, I play them to get a little peice of adventure and danger while kicking back on my puter, again like you guys said if I have to constantly bust my butt just to get thru one mission after replaying for 10 times over, the experience has diminished, and its become not much less than work to get thru it, now in my opinion having alot of immersive qualities in the mission can make for higher tolerance of a missions difficulty, but there's always a line to be drawn, a mission shouldnt be created with the idea that one almost has to do the dang thing five times over before they get it right. To me, that say, well darn, that means people might be able to get thru a few missions I busted my butt on in just one or two nights, oh well, better that and they had a good experience (and might want to play them again) rather than people getting frustrated and having to keep banging their heads against the same mission until after x amount of hours on it they finally get past it (normally missions that I have had this experience with, when I finally do win it, I have little desire to play any longer till like at leas the next day lol).

Although Capture The Island does not really have much detail to it as far as individualized scenarios, there isnt really another ofp mission that comes close to making so much happen on the island where the ai can be so strategic, its that feeling that stuff's happeneing and for a reason that I like those missions so much. Abandoned Armies to me is kind of similiar in that there is alot going on, but it is much more personalized and immersive, but a simpler ai overall strategy layout. Always wanted to see someone make a 'personalized' version of CTI, all kinds of stuff could be done to make it very immersive.

There, now ive wasted an hour typing my fingers off lol